雙語暢銷書《艾倫圖靈傳》第8章:水銀延時線(85)
The ACE, as planned, would have at most 200,000 digits in store.
He described the storage planned for the ACE as 'comparable with the memory capacity of a minnow'.
圖靈把ACE的存儲能力比喻成"一條鰷魚的腦容量"。But even so, he perceived the development of 'learning' programs as something that would be feasible within a short period: not merely a hypothetical possibility, but affecting current research in a practical way.
然而即便如此，他仍然相信，學習式編程在很短的時間內就將變成可能，這並不是個假想，而是一條非常具體的實踐道路。
On 20 November 1946 he had replied to an enquiry from W. Ross Ashby, a neurologist eager to make progress with mechanical models of cerebral function, in the following terms:
1946年11月20日，圖靈回信給W·羅斯·阿什比，這是一位神經學家，他十分急切地希望推動腦功能的機械模型的發展。圖靈在信中如是寫道：The ace will be used, as you suggest, in the first instance in an entirely disciplined manner, similar to the action of the lower centres, although the reflexes will be extremely complicated.
正如你提到的，ACE先會以完全確定的方式運行，就像人類大腦的某些低級行爲，儘管它們很複雜，但卻具有確定的關係。The disciplined action carries with it the disagreeable feature, which you mentioned, that it will be entirely uncritical when anything goes wrong.
這些行爲不具有糾錯性，如你所說，只要出現任何差錯，它就不知道該怎麼反饋。It will also be necessarily devoid of anything that could be called originality.
這些行爲也不具有任何所謂的創造性。There is, however, no reason why the machine should always be used in such a manner: there is nothing in its construction which obliges us to do so.
然而，沒有理由表明機器只能以這種方式工作，我們在建造的過程中，並沒有把它限制在這裏。It would be quite possible for the machine to try out variations of behaviour and accept or reject them in the manner you describe and I have been hoping to make the machine do this.
機器同樣有可能嘗試行爲的多樣性，並按照你說的方式，接受或排斥某個行爲的結果，這也是我希望機器能夠做到的。This is possible because, without altering the design of the machine itself, it can, in theory at any rate, be used as a model of any other machine, by making it remember a suitable set of instructions.
這是可以嘗試的，不需要改變機器的設計，因爲從理論上說，這種機器可以作爲任何機器來使用，只要給它輸入相應的指令表。The ace is in fact, analogous to the 'universal machine' described in my paper on computable numbers.
ACE實際上與我在《可計算數》中描述的"通用機"很相似，This theoretical possibility is attainable in practice, in all reasonable cases, at worst at the expense of operating slightly slower than a machine specially designed for the purpose in question.
這種理論上的可能性，在實踐中也是同樣可行的，通常情況下，最壞的代價也只是比專用設備稍微慢一點。Thus, although the brain may in fact operate by changing its neuron circuits by the growth of axons and dendrites, we could nevertheless make a model, within the ace, in which this possibility was allowed for, but in which the actual construction of the ace did not alter, but only the remembered data, describing the mode of behaviour applicable at any time.
因此，雖然大腦的運行機制實際上是通過樹突和軸突來改變神經迴路，但是我們同樣可以在ACE中模擬這個模型，並不需要改變ACE的硬件設備，只需要存儲相關的數據，並描述這個模型在各種情況下的行爲。I feel that you would be well advised to take advantage of this principle, and do your experiments on the ace, instead of building a special machine.
我想你會接受這個原理，並在ACE上進行實驗，而不是建造一種專用的機器。
